Unbloggishly, here we read from the top down - so the new month begins here at the top!

Big Spender - June 1st

MistressDomina did very well selling overnight - so much so that I was tempted to make an outrageously expensive purchase in the morning, just before coffee. I found that the healer Kaznar was selling a pair of +15 gloves, blue-named, with all five evasion seals for three billion gold. You might think that one billion would be nearer to the market price - but these Ebade Newvesta Gloves have "decrease limit of apparel level -10". Normally you would only be able to equip them at level 115, but the decrease means that Barbarienne can wear them at level 105, or right away. Her evasion, compared to the old level 85 b5e gloves, stays at 1183, but her physical defence rises from 3334 to 3458. Which doesn't seem a whole lot, considering that Barb has thus skipped direct from 85 to 115, leaping over the level 90, 95, 100, 105, and 110 gloves, but it's a step in the right direction. And the level 105 g5e gloves have been put back in Roy's merchant mart, to see if we can get our 420 million for them back.

All that excitement meant the morning playing session was a bit late starting - it finished slightly early, too, but RedRydeR and SirKit did manage to take possession of floor three of Maargadum Jail, where Red gained 17.90%, taking her into level 46, plus 51 skill points and 766 pet points, and Kit added 9.11%, along with 49 skill points, as he arrived only after Red had found the place clear and started fighting.

After lunch, I was able to transfer the old 50/52 +13 armour set that Kaerella had used, particularly when she was farming skill points from the beast flyers herself, across from CuddlesMcGraw, who had been looking after it, to RedRydeR. Red then spent 1,252,800 gold getting Collector Ryl to change the armour into the rogue equivalent, the "Fatal" set, which I think is, with its red velvet look, one of the best-looking rogue armours. The full 50/52 armour set is one of the rarer ones in the game, so not many rogues will be wearing it.

It was also necessary to pass over some assorted saleable stuff to MistressDomina, so that, after spending all her gold, she will, hopefully, be able to start building up her reserves again. But then it was time for RedRydeR and SirKit to return to Maargadum Jail, with Red wearing the gloves, jacket and pants of her new armour set, and thus with rather better physical defence than before - 1186 had gone up to 1507.

Luck was with us, and our floor of the Jail was again not being used by anyone else - and we stayed there for the whole three hours of the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff. Our only visitor was a sorcerer called Flamebreaker who assured me that he only wanted to kill a single beast flyer, to check how much experience he'd get. After killing one, he decided that the beast scythes were better for him, which was fine with me. They do have the advantage of not being protective of each other, so you don't get a whole mob of them attacking you at once.

It was a fairly busy session, with plenty of Wendy Bear pieces, and three "hands of the warrior", each including a heaven stone of course. By the time the Elizabuff ran out, RedRydeR had earned another 50.23%, and 2773 pet points, and SirKit was up by 28.50%; they had each gained 154 skill points, which was just enough to take Red back over the 22k mark.

RedRackham did a little work on his drake over the early evening food break, and then RedRydeR took the "beast hearts" she had collected out to Rau at the column of magic. The quest reward gave her 100,000 gold, plus 4.29% experience and 10 skill points.

SirKit and AmityBlaise then teamed up in Randol. Amy finished getting Innate Movement, got a couple more levels of Mental Defence, the final level of Poison Capsule, and the second level of Swift Bash to spend all her 206 skill points - SirKit spent 216 on the fifth level of Two Weapon Fighting. A quest reward from Magician Dien in Merac gave Amy 6.27%, which was enough to get her into level 28. In Dratan, Jajan rewarded her for having some dark orbs. which added another 10.68% and 4 skill points.

The main evening session, however, had SirKit in charge, accompanied by AmityBlaise, for a trip to Prokion Temple. The level 36 cleric ThunderStorms was already in the back room when we arrived - but she was taking a break in a quiet corner, so we set to work bashing the local orc axemen and sergeants - and clicked on her to invite her into a combat party, which when she returned to her keyboard she clicked "yes" to.

As I'd been in a solo party before, and seen ThunderStorms occupying the back room a few times, I knew that she was attempting to farm masses of skill points, and that a combat party, with Amy in it to lower the average level, and ThunderStorms not fighting, might give her some useful skill exp - and she did take advantage of the offer for a while, just standing and chatting. She was 77.74% of the way through her level, which obviously was taking a while, longer even than level 35 took RedRydeR - but with the axemen still giving 1100 skill exp and the sergeants three times that, she was carrying on with it. She had already got 37,708 skill points, and was intending to earn some more as she levelled up, so is going to be one fully-skilled cleric, all the way. She did find the idea of teaming with someone about ten levels below her, to boost the experience and skill exp gain, useful, so may try it once she finishes her current level, I think.

ThunderStorms got tired of not fighting, after a while, though, and went off to find a room of her own, leaving us in full possession of the back room, but staying in the party for its solo benefits until about 8:30, UK time. So, SirKit was busy fighting, and AmityBlaise did some fighting too. Kit reached level 38, and was still getting useful experience and skill exp from the orcs - around 2,600/2,300 from the axemen, and 25,000/3,600 from the sergeants.

A mage called xXthekillerXx came in to share the room, but was a friendly type, and gave both of us buffs - so Kit gave her Divine Shield and Concentration too, though I doubt if the latter would have been of any benefit. It shows willing, though! Before long she decided to leave the room to us, and went off in search of a room of her own.

Towards the end a sorcerer called xXsorcexX came in, but didn't know any English, so I have no idea if he was saying "Do you mind, old chap? This group of orcs are all mine, I tell you!" or "I say, if it's not too much bother, could you take a few of this mob of orc blighters off me?" He did say "party?" after a while, but by then the Elizabuffs were just running out, so I had to decline the offer, and left him in control of the room.

SirKit had added 38.06% during the evening, while AmityBlaise had earned another 46.47% in the Temple, along with 144 guild points for Discipline. They each added 348 skill points, so that Kit now actually has over 7,000 unused skill points.

Once the recently-acquired Wendy Bear pieces had been traded across to MistressFelicia, and the other good loot moved across to MistressDomina, MD moved across to Cariae-4 and went into merchant mode near the arena, just close enough to the small fountain there for her pony to be visible. With the official weekly maintenance scheduled for later on, she wasn't going to pull another all-nighter, but with her gold reserves down to almost nothing, a bit of replenishment seemed like a good idea. RedRackham took his drake out to the gnoll lancers on the same subserver for an hour or so; the drake is now around a quarter of the way through level 38, so I really ought to trade it over to RedRydeR soon. For one thing, if RedRydeR has a session or so in Maargadum Jail during the day, the pet she has equipped there probably earns as many pet points as RedRackham's drake manages per day at present.

There was an event scheduled today on Auzura and Katar, but it was apparently going to last two hours, involving "Strategy in Strayana", a hide and seek part, and staying close to the GM for two hours, so that is your name was whispered and you responded quickly enough, you could win a prize. It all sounded rather vague and complicated, so I opted not to burn the midnight oil on it. We are promised a proper "Mad Monster Spawn" on Friday evening though, so that's something to look forward to.

Everybody Out... - June 2nd

The overnight maintenance brought only the tiniest patch, with no changes to anything other than the item mall, so I was hopeful that there wouldn't be any need for unscheduled further downtimes to put anything right. We are halfway through the Wendy Bear event now, which means that more people seem to be wearing the pirate armour cover than not.

At breakfast time, RedRackham went out on Cariae-4 to do a little more work on his drake with the gnoll lancers. An hour or so later I noticed that a pandora's box had appeared close to him, so RedRydeR teleported down to open it, and to deal with a level 50 pandora beast if one was released - but all we got was a drop of ten small healing potions. That spot is actually pretty close to the level 50 salamander ruins and level 51 cerebri, so my phoenix rogue tried them out while she was there. With their magical attack the cerebri could do some damage, but neither monster gave very impressive experience. RedRydeR gained 0.29%, a skill point, and 31 pet points.

MistressDomina had taken in about 178 million last night before logging out, which isn't anything like enough to buy any of the armour items on her wants list, so went back into merchant mode on Cariae-4 after that for a while. She sold the few heaven stones she had in her inventory, followed by three lucky smelting stones...and then somebody bought 150 item drop boosters, which helped to move MD's total another step back towards respectability.

After coffee, RedRydeR headed for Maargadum Jail and, finding floor three free, started to fight the beast flyers, and their friends the beast archers. SirKit logged on, and Red recruited him into the combat party; he then hurried to join her, just standing at the side providing the combat party boost. There were no visitors; by the end of the session, Red had earned 31.13%, 106 skill points and 1528 pet points, while Kit had added 14.92% and 99 skill points. Plenty more pieces of the Wendy Bear had been picked up, as well as a couple of heaven stones.

Over lunch, RedRackham had got his drake past the halfway point in level 38, which meant that it was definitely time to arrange a trade with RedRyder. So, that drake was passed to RedRydeR - and her drake, a quarter of the way through level 20, went to RedRackham, for a bit of a boost. RedRackham's supply of quality stones was getting a bit low, so RedRydeR bought seventeen rogue-type hammers from Geres, headed for the mine, and used some of the tool aids she'd picked up recently to mine 459 quality stones. RedRackham followed her there, used the one pick-axe he had, with a tool aid... and traded the few Wendy Bear pieces he'd somehow acquired for RedRydeR's supply of quality stones.

RedRydeR and SirKit then headed for Maargadum Jail together, for a session which, due to its late start, wasn't all that much longer than the morning session. RedRydeR levelled up to 47 in a little under an hour, so I equipped her with her level 52 hood and boots to complete her 50/52 set, used her new stat points to increase her dexterity... and then found that SirKit, his dual blades flashing, was fighting alongside me, rather than standing at the side - how could this be?

It was in fact my recently-added friends list pal, the level 44 knight uffo1, who had just arrived, asked to join the party, and after a minute or two hurried off somewhere. He may have gone down to level four or five, or he may have gone into one of level three's side rooms, just off my radar... but his health bar went inexorably down, and after it reached zero, he logged out. He did log back in, but didn't say anything, and left the party before long.

By the time the early evening food break was approaching, RedRyder had earned 33.85%, while SirKit had gained 18.06% - and they had each got 122 new skill points. Over the break, RedRackham did a little pet-levelling work - and then it was time for the evening session, though, as usual for a Wednesday, it would not go on as late as on other evenings.

Since RedRydeR and SirKit had had the other two sessions, this time it was SirKit's turn to take the lead, with AmityBlaise tagging along. They headed for Prokion Temple of course, and for a change found the back room free - there was no sign of ThunderStorms at all. xXSorcexX did put in a brief appearance, he vanished so suddenly after a minute or two that he may have died - and that was it, apart from a junior mage who ran in, saw that the place didn't lead anywhere, and ran out again.

By the time I had to log out, SirKit had earned another 20.74%, while AmityBlaise was up by 17.46% and 53 guild points - they had each gained 209 skill points.

RedRackham logged in while I was away, to do a bit of pet-levelling on the lower-level drake - but wouldn't you know it, somehow our Aeria chums had got something to do with the item mall, and billing, not sorted out during the scheduled maintenance, so once again there was an unscheduled downtime - so when I checked on Mr Rackham, he was disconnected, and there was an announcement that the Cariae two-hour event had been cancelled. By Aeria games standards a half hour downtime is "brief" I guess, so at 9:50pm UK time, after [GM]Ozymandias had tipped off the forum shoutbox that the servers were back up again, RedRackham was able to return to the gnoll lancers in Merac.

"Cariae/Sarissa events are being cancelled today due to the downtime and issues that have arisen", they announced. "To make up for this, there will be a 150% xp/sp event running on all Cariae/Sarissa servers from 3pm-5pm PDT" - a bit late to be any use to us Europeans, and, really, just switching on 50% extra experience, even with skill exp added, is a poor substitute for a proper actual adventuring event.

Curiously, I don't think RedRackham lost any pet experience at all from the disconnection, but I'm glad, after last week, that I didn't have MistressDomina on Cariae, or MistressDomino on Auzura, in merchant mode. In fact, I decided to cancel my tentative plans to set MistressDomina up to sell her items overnight...

And that was just as well, as, after RedRackham had added a mere 414 pet points, the Cariae server crashed. The pet-levelling appeared to go through the motions, but no points were added, and no damage numbers floated up over the gnoll lancer's head, and after a while the "disconnected" window came up again. The people in the forum shoutbox were not happy. [GM]Ozymandias mentioned that the GMs weren't taking any messages or tickets - "We have to deal with the servers first". So, it doesn't look as if I'll be doing any overnight pet-levelling, even.

Time for Sphinx Fighting - June 3rd

I don't know how long the Cariae server was offline last night, when I switched off and went to bed they were still unable to give any estimates as to when it would be available again, but this morning, by European clocks, it was back in action, so that RedRackham was able to head off to the gnoll lancers in Merac on Cariae-4 before breakfast, and start moving his new drake on through level 21.

After breakfast, MistressDomina also logged on, and attempted to do some selling. The six lucky smelting stones went first, at 12 million each, and a bit later somebody bought twenty experience boosters - but the first big sale was when someone bought all 285 chaos balls MD had on offer, at 995,000 each. Mid-morning, somebody bought eighty item drop boosters at 695,000 gold... and then a hundred more of those were sold, and 150 experience boosters at 1,540,000, so MistressDomino's gold reserves were finally back up over the billion mark...which might be enough to buy the gloves Keerella needs, or even some sort of new bow for Barbarienne. The next sale, for 3,243,000 gold, was my entire supply of drake eggs and pan flutes at 34,500 gold each. 46 item drop boosters were next, and then another fifty experience boosters went at about eleven o'clock. A couple of chaos balls were sold, this time at 999,500 each, and then somebody took twenty of them, followed by another three...and another fifty went just before MistressDomino shut up shop.

So, I didn't have the time for an actual playing session in the morning - but moving along in a game like Last Chaos is about more than killing monsters, it's about shopping, and gathering resources, and planning. I would possibly move on from floor three of Maargadum Jail now under usual circumstances, but the way the Wendy Bear pieces drop there was tempting me to stay for another level - and having SirKit there, nine levels lower than RedRydeR, makes even the beast archers worth killing, just as having AmityBlaise accompany SirKit to Prokion Temple has been the only way for Kit to get any useful experience and skill exp there at his level.

For the afternoon, RedRackham logged out, and RedRydeR and SirKit went to Maargadum Jail, in their combat party and with the Elizabuff on. When I arrived the sorcerer Flamebreaker was there, so, while SirKit went into the central area, off to its side, and sat down, RedRydeR remained upstairs and fought some beast scythes and beast archers...until the sorcerer decided to head deeper into the Jail after no more than a minute or so, meaning that we were able to take over the central area.

Apart from a brief visit from someone called Suju29, who left as soon as he saw that Red had the beast flyers under control, everything went smoothly, though, perhaps because Red is now a level above the beast flyers, there weren't as many hands of bravery, protection, or the guard, and no heaven stones, in hands of the warrior or not, at all. Still, the moonstone boxes and Wendy Bear pieces remained pretty plentiful. By the time the session was over, RedRydeR had earned 38.20%, along with 2195 pet points, and SirKit was up by 21.07%. They had each got 140 skill points.

The evening session was divided into three parts. For the first section, SirKit and AmityBlaise went to Prokion Temple, and, finding the back room free, settled in there, staying for two hours. SirKit reached level 39 fairly soon, but the experience gain and skill exp was still reasonable, so they continued for a while; by the end, Kit had earned 20.87%, while Amy was up by 19.70% and 52 guild points - and they had each earned 211 more skill points.

But, there comes a time when every character has to bid farewell to Prokion Temple, and for SirKit, the time had arrived. So, Kit and Amy headed off to Merac, where Kit found a few minor quests to do in the village - and also got a quest to kill ten highlanders. The daring duo headed off down the road south, and, after adding the entrance to Maargadum Jail to Amy's memory scroll, reached the first two or three highlanders, by the path leading to the Misty Canyon teleporter. The cleric ThunderStorms was there, fighting the quartet of elite frenzied berserkers, so I said hi, and asked how she was finding them, and she seemed happy to be fighting there. She too is a recent graduate from Prokion, of course.

Kit and Amy moved on down the road to the gnoll soldiers, and finished off fighting the pair of highlanders that come between the gnolls and the salamander ruins, just long enough to complete Kit's quest. Then, they teleported to the Jail.

Someone was fighting the spike canines and dire spike canines on the ground floor of Maargadum Jail, so, while Kit's horse buffs lasted, Kit and Amy ran down to level two, which was also pretty busy, with all three of its main rooms being used. Luckily Kit only really needed a few canines, so mainly just used a couple of groups out in the corridor.

It wasn't a terribly long session, but it got AmityBlaise into level 29, allowing the party to change from equal to combat once more. Including his quest rewards, SirKit went up by another 15.52% and 10 skill points, and Amy went up by 10.14%, 28 guild points, and 8 skill points.

But there was still half an hour or so left of the evening, so Amy logged out, Kit moved over to the older computer - and RedRydeR logged in. It seemed like a good idea for Red and Kit to have a first exploratory team-up out at the level 63 sphinx fighters and level 64 sphinx "speer" men, now that Red is wearing the full 50/52 armour set - so they teamed up in a combat party, got the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, moved to Dratan, and teleported out to the sphinx campsite.

RedRydeR did kill a few sphinx types there, which as ever was easier when Snare worked than when it failed, but the place had a couple of other people too, so I decided to try to move along to the location of the other elite sphinx speer man. That didn't give Red too much trouble, though she lost a little health, but Kit's health got dangerously low once when, clicked on Red to auto-follow, he managed to get snagged on a tree, and a speer man started attacking him. Still, Red managed to kill it in time, and before long the location that Kaerella used for a while, not to mention various characters over on Auzura, had been reached, and added to my two characters' memory scrolls.

I didn't particularly want to fight the elite sphinx speer man yet; the regular types were giving 0.35% or more per kill, which was good enough for me. So, when a specialist sorcerer turned up who did want to target the elite, I moved to the other end of the pathway and fought fighters and speer men there. With Red's armour, they didn't do a lot of damage even when Snare failed, but I probably ought to invest in some medium-size health potions before trying a longer session there.

Anyway, while RedRydeR and SirKit didn't gain any skill points, Red went up by 43.49%, moving into level 48, also gaining 423 pet points, and Kit added 21.19%...so we are, potentially, at the start of some relatively swift levelling up...

After transferring loot and Wendy Bear pieces to MistressDomina and MistressFelicia, my adventurers logged out; MistressFelicia took up a position close to the event NPC Sharoyan, and started selling the Wendy Bear pieces at 195,000 each, taking in over fourteen million in gold before someone else came along and started selling them at 150,000, which was the price Felicia tried last time, only for someone to buy them all in the first minute or two. RedRackham returned to his pet-levelling duties, and chatted, down with the gnoll lancers, with HoneyBun, who told him that the Cariae downtime yesterday had continued beyond midnight, UK time. An announcement of 50% extra experience and skill exp for Cariae, until 2:00am, came up, but was a bit late in the day for me.

The Return of the Mad Monster Spawn - June 4th

MistressFelicia sold her Wendy Bear pieces steadily through the night - and then, while I was having breakfast, some kind person bought the last 43 of them, so that in all she sold 275, for a total of 53,625,000 gold... not a huge sum compared to some of MistressDomina's sales, but this was money for nothing.

RedRackham had a successful night too, sparring with a gnoll lancer down in Merac, so that his drake had levelled up twice, reaching level 25 by morning. As usual the mages from the DisciplesofHope guild, HoneyBun and KiaOra, were there too; HoneyBun must have had a slight hiccup as I noticed, before breakfast, that her gnoll was wandering free rather than being fought, but the next time I looked, she was back in pet-levelling action.

MistressDomina was back in merchant mode on Cariae-4 by nine o'clock, after I'd had a quick look around for any weapons or armour I'm after on Auzura and Cariae; since I knew I wouldn't be able to do any active playing in the morning or afternoon, she would have the chance for a nice long selling session. Within a minute of opening she sold all 306 skill point boosters, which was a good start, and a hundred item drop boosters followed before long, swiftly followed by another sixty. It was a while before someone bought twenty heaven stones, her next sale.

The Last Chaos product manager, aeria_ks1lent, put in an appearance in the forum shoutbox at about ten UK time. 2:00am PDT, saying "It's daytime in Korea, so it's daytime for me." Someone said they thought he was still there - "Only in my mind," he replied. "Korea is fun, living Korea hours in California... makes me go crazy." Someone else asked for more experience in Mondshine, and he could only reply "We're working on it, but you know how that goes....anyway I'm off to sink my teeth into some hackers, always puts me in a good mood. Take care."

Later in the morning, MistressDomina sold all eighty of her large attack potions, bringing in another 36 million - and soon after eleven, RedRackham's drake reached level 26. Four more heaven stones were sold in the next half hour, and then another three and another two - it's strange, the price was the same but I don't think MistressDomina sold any heaven stones in her last session. Twenty more item drop boosters sold shortly before lunch,...and after lunch somebody bought 200 chaos balls, making a useful boost to the total. Then the last of the chaos balls went, and the last of the item drop boosters, and another heaven stone, so it was time for MD to replenish her stocks, from what she had left in storage.

While I was setting MistressDomina up again, moving the items for sale into place, just before 2:30pm both she and RedRackham got disconnected. That was a problem at this end, I think, and they were soon back up - and MD quickly sold out of heaven stones and item drop boosters again, with 150 skill point boosters following, followed later by another ten, five lucky smelting stones, and 29 experience boosters. Someone bought a drake egg - and someone else, as my early evening food break approached, cleared out the remaining 251 experience boosters. The remaining ten drake eggs and pan flutes then went, and the fourteen large defence potions, followed by three lucky smelting stones.

Not to be outdone, RedRackham levelled his drake up to 27 over the break - but soon after that, it was time for him and MD to log out. The "APAC Happy Hour" on Auzura was approaching, so I thought I might as well make use of it.

MistressBlaze, my level 47 wizard, and MistressSabina, my level 40 witch, logged in on Auzura-5 - and headed for Maargadum Jail as an equal party. Blaze did actually have three quests for down there, needing spike canine skins, beast hearts, and to kill thirty beast flyers, so, after running down to level two with the horse buffs to protect us, she set about killing the necessary canines and beasts. The duo did go down to level three, but the central area was in use, and I don't think Blaze's armour is quite up to the full fury of all the beast flyers there, as it's two pieces of +13 and three pieces of +8. So, generally we concentrated on a side room, with just four beast flyers and a few beast archers.

By the end of the session, MistressBlaze had gone up by 12.64%, and added 1546 pet points - the quest rewards should add a bit more experience to that, at least. Mistress Sabina had added 23.64%, which was enough to get her into level 41 - and they'd each gained 74 skill points.

After the extra 50% experience gain from the Happy Hour on Auzura had ended, RedRydeR and SirKit had a rather short session out with the sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men on Cariae-5, including the elite sphinx speer man a few times. Generally, Red was in control, except when the elite was joined by an interfering ordinary speer man, when a strategic withdrawal was needed, to let Snare recharge. Luckily it worked the second time. RedRydeR added 12.62%, and just 297 pet points, while SirKit went up by 37.37% - it was an equal party, to help move Kit along a bit, and in that it succeeded.

The session had to be brief, as the first proper "Mad Monster Spawn" for, it seems, months, was due to start on Auzura-5 at nine o'clock, UK time. My level 92 main Auzuran character Rage logged in, and when I got to the usual location with almost ten minutes to spare, there were already masses of people there - and a purple dragon was being fought.

That was just an appetiser, though. [GM]Stratos was in charge of this "old school MMS", and it was the old-fashioned kind, with different waves being spawned, rather than the "cover the whole valley with monsters" type we had been having before the gap. The first wave was easy enough, but when, after some good old-fashioned loot, we got on to a wave of large quantities of cave spirits, things did get hard. Me versus a "hovering spirit of the rogue" may seem reasonable, but those are level 131, 39 levels above Rage, so I suffered a lot of damage and it took some time to kill it. I had to run from a "silent spirit of the knight" which took a dislike to me, and as usual the whole thing seemed impossible, but we picked them off, and eventually they were all gone, and another wave of loot was spawned.

And then came the "boss wave", which generally was easier - though I was one of two people stunned when a fluton appeared out of nowhere next to us. Unable to move, I just had to hope that a large health potion would be enough to keep me alive, until I could run to a safe distance.... and it was. I did manage to tank a couple of sphinx commanders, with a little help... and then helped with the remaining flutons and patriarch botises.

So, it was a good old-fashioned Mad Monster Spawn, and, by his standards, [GM]Stratos was quite generous with the loot - I managed to pick up five large attack potions, and seven each of the large defence potions and skill point boosters. Presumably I got a similar number of item drop boosters, and twice as many tool aids, but they must have stacked on ones I already had in my inventory. Rage had been recruited into a party with a couple of level thirty types as well as one or two others in the nineties, so 0.25% was all the experience I got. One party member was a bit vocal about the experience he lost from a death or three, but if you are level 30-ish, and a melee fighter, a MMS is a dangerous place to visit.

The event was over by 9:30; I was slightly tempted to take Barbarienne along to the Cariae event at 10:00, but decided against it. It had been fun, but once was enough. Tomorrow we should get a "Storm the Castle" down in Merac, and with any luck I will make a double appearance then.

RedRackham had been doing some more pet-levelling during the MMS; he did get disconnected at some point, but returned once the event was over, and with any luck the drake should be halfway through level 27 by the time I head for bed.

The Return of the Stormed Castle - Cancelled! - June 5th

RedRackham attempted to do some overnight pet-levelling, but got a disconnection somewhere around 2:00am, UK time, so when I checked a bit later, I just turned off the computer, and the modem. With this warm weather it does the room, and its machines, good to cool down a bit, I'm sure. The drake had reached level 29 by then - and Red was back in action before breakfast.

MistressDomina did a bit more selling from soon after breakfast until after coffee, and got rid of her supply of heaven stones fairly quickly, followed by three experience boosters, thirty damage boosters, and a single "tear of repentance" which, if you've gone red-named through pk-ing people, and are more than 15 points towards the dark side, recovers one point for you. The sale of 240 experience boosters provided the biggest, er, boost, though, and took MD's reserves back over their level before she bought Barbarienne's rather expensive pair of gloves.

AmityBlaise, my level 29 Cariae rogue, then logged in, and spent 108 skill points on the fifth level of Mental Defence, increasing her magical defence by 4, followed by 163 points on all five levels of Combat Reflection, which apparently will give a 20% chance of "reflecting damage back on your attacker".

Amy then headed for Prokion Temple, joining a solo party. I started off in the back room, but, since a few extra skill points per level seemed to be a good idea, before long I moved across to the "mirror corridor room", with its orc fighters, still green-named for Amy, and one orc axeman. By the time I logged out for the lunch break, AmityBlaise had more than got back the skill points she had spent earlier, gaining 403 in all to leave her 132 ahead on the day. 65.09% experience had been added, along with 247 guild points for Discipline.

RedRackham continued his work through the lunch break, and his drake was just able to reach level 29 before he logged out, to allow RedRydeR and SirKit to team up again out at the sphinx types, in an equal party.

This time, Red did include the elite sphinx "speer" man in the rota of targets, generally retreating a couple of times to lure it away from its friends, and then using Snare when it was close to SirKit. Ideally, Snare would work, and when it was running out, Kit would use Shield Bash to re-stun the target. If Snare didn't work, Red would take some heavy damage, and if Shield Bash failed as well, a strategic retreat was needed. Still, usually at least one of those two worked. If Red's health was a bit low, generally attacking a sphinx fighter would allow the 10% suction of life accessory she has equipped to bring back at least some of the health bar.

By the time that the early evening food break loomed, RedRydeR had earned 75.75%, so was getting towards the top of level 48, plus 1719 pet points for her drake - and SirKit was up by 187.34%, so that he had moved from level 39 to 41, meaning he could equip the gloves, and then the mail and leggings, of the 45/47 armour set. Some of the monsters still just gave 2 skill exp per kill, but others did start to give 50 to 60, so that both Red and Kit did each earn a single skill point from the session. Wendy Bear pieces continued to drop usefully, and there were even a couple of heaven stones.

Over the break RedRackham was back in pet-levelling action, and continued when SirKit logged in and spent 150 skill points on Uncanny Movement 2, to increase his movement speed by 18%. Kit's attempts to join one of the listed solo parties were thwarted by a message saying "You can not apply to join. You got an invitation from someone else", so RedRackham had to move across from Cariae-4 to Cariae-5 to give him a solo party.

SirKit got his quest rewards for various things, and also got two new quests that involved killing gnoll soldiers. Riding down towards them, he stopped by the elite frenzied berserkers, and sure enough ThunderStorms was busy there. "I'm level 41 now", she reported. "One more level, then I can take a break."

Once the gnoll soldiers were seen to, there was the first Maargadum Jail quest to do, just getting five spike canine skins, which was quick and simple. Across in Dratan, Kit got the "Depravity of Baal" quest from Shuraine, which I have no intention of doing since Kit's magic defence is only 41, and Baal has a rather nasty magic attack. I rode down to the poison mists to get the seven "viscous fluid" for one quest, and killed some brutal deer of the desert nearby to get six antlers for another. I even attempted to do the "Taking Back the Treasures" quest, which should involve finding the Dratan Miner Trainer's missing package near a goblin's hut, probably near to Translator Edgar at an oasis in Dratan's desert... but it seems that quest continues to be broken. It's strange, that is I think the first time I've actually qualified to be asked to do that quest, which seems a bit of an oddity.

SirKit ended up, mainly from the quest rewards, adding 33.75% experience and 104 skill points. He reached level 42, so is now able to wear the compete Warnin armour set; as it is +8, with +11 helm and +13 boots, the physical defence stat is much improved over the +6 Abro set, rising from 1034 to 1421.

It was then RedRydeR's turn to mop up some quests - but she started by teleporting to the sphinx fighter campsite, and then running and riding from there to the entrance to the Tomb of Theos, to get that spot onto her memory scroll. The next thing to do was visit the sphinx spot she and Kit had been at earlier, and fight there just long enough to reach level 49... which meant that she could move on from the level 45 crossbow she had been using, to a level 53 one. When you have +15 weapons, it is easy enough to save a bit of gold by skipping one...I do have a level 49 weapon that Kaerella used, but it's only +13, so not as good as a level 45 +15.

So, the new crossbow increases RedRydeR's physical attack from 995 to 1124, which certainly made it easier to deal with the sphinx fighters. And as for the old crossbow, well, once Collector Ryl has worked his magic, SirKit will have a new pair of dual swords to own his adversaries with...

There were a number of quests for Red to catch up on - including the one to kill thirty beast flyers, the same quest MistressBlaze had done over on Auzura recently. Down in southern Merac there were lava giants to kill, and cerebrii, and salamander ruins... the cerebrii quest was an unusual one, as killing them, to get some of their teeth, was coupled with killing some rough jaguars of the desert, down in the south of Dratan. Still, I managed to ride down there and find three of the jaguars, so had to wait for them to respawn a few times before I got all four of the teeth I needed.

RedRydeR cleared out all her outstanding quests, except for a new one she was given - there didn't quite seem time to head down into the Jail again, and kill "beast leaders" (really the beast crawlers) until they dropped a few rings. From past experience I know not to attack them on level four, but to go to the far end of level five and pick off a couple of isolated ones - but that can wait. As it was, as much from quest rewards as from the actual fighting RedRydeR had added 26.83%, 111 skill points, and 292 pet points.

RedRydeR was also running short of quality stones, having passed most of hers over to RedRackham, so I was glad to find I just had time to do some mining, before the high spot of the evening, the series of "Storm the Castle" events, at Merac Castle. Auzura was scheduled to go first, so I logged Rage in on Auzura-5. I then checked the website post, to make sure I had the right subserver... and against every server the word "cancelled" had been added.

Yet another cancelled event on Last Chaos... I can't remember anything like this situation in the past, unless there have been server stability problems. It is very worrying, especially coupled with the news that [GM]Cara, who seemed the brightest and most capable of the recently recruited GMs, is leaving our game, to become the senior GM on another Aeria game, Grand Fantasia. This comes within days of [GM]Kali leaving... we have other GMs of course, but how many are spreading themselves over a number of Aeria games, and only occasionally dropping in on us?

RedRackham continued pet-levelling until the end of the evening, getting his drake to within an hour of the end of level 29; on the main computer, after my merchant mages did a little searching through Roy's stock for the items I'm after, unsuccessfully. the game got closed a bit earlier than planned...

The Ghost in the Machine - June 6th

The pet-levelling began for RedRackham at breakfast time, and it wasn't long before the drake reached level 30. He had the gnoll lancer spot in Merac on Cariae-4 to himself, the mages HoneyBun and KiaOra must be taking some time off.

After coffee, RedRydeR and SirKit logged on, and, once Kit had got the level 45 crossbow and had it converted into dual swords, went out to the sphinx types, and the less obvious of the two elite sphinx speer men. Things ran smoothly, and, with the equal party, SirKit levelled up again - RedRydeR's drake levelled up too, reaching 39. RedRyder added 46.59%, and 987 pet points, while SirKit went up by 112.88%. And they each got a couple of skill points, too...

There was just time before lunch, after RedRackham went back to his drake-levelling, for MistressDomina to do a little shopping on Cariae-4. And this time she found one item on her shopping list - Antistune Jarinom Armor +15, a nice new jacket for Barbarienne. It was being sold, via Roy, by SoutherNComforT for 900 million, which didn't seem unreasonable as it was blue-named and had the proper five evasion seals, and was +15 - it also had "decrease limit of apparel level: -3", which means that Barb can wear it right away, or indeed could have worn it two levels ago. Rather useful! That was certainly one of the top four items on my shopping list, along with +15 mage gloves, a new bow for Barb, and, over on Auzura, a level 85 +15 bow for Kaerella there.

After lunch, it didn't take RedRydeR long to kill enough beast leaders, or beast crawlers, on level five of Maargadum Jail to finish her quest - her horse buff was still running when she teleported back to town. 2.95 million experience was the reward for that, which, doubled by the Elizabuff, moved her on by 3.40%; in all she went up 3.64% and 6 skill points. RedRackham had moved across to Cariae-5 to provide the solo party. SirKit checked for new quests, but despite levelling up this morning couldn't find any; one thing he did do, though, was convert his old level 37 dual swords into a single sword, for 180,000 gold, as to use Shield Bash to stun the elite sphinx speer man he has to equip a shield, which means he can't conveniently use his dual swords to help with the attack.

Recently got loot was transferred to MistressDomina, who traded the healer jacket and leggings she'd bought recently across to Barbarienne, who gave her in return the level 85 +15 healer gloves, and level 86 +15 healer jacket, which Barb no longer needs to wear, which MD then traded across to Kaerella - and received their +13 equivalents instead which, I guess, we can try to sell at some point. Kae can't wear the 85/87 set yet, but at least she is suitably prepared.

RedRydeR and SirKit's afternoon session with the sphinx types wasn't a marathon, but they both managed to level up. For the first hour, Red used a platinum adrenaline potion, to speed up her attack, which was useful, but for the rest of the time we were just proceeding as usual. An archer from the EternalDawn guild, AngelofSilence, arrived soon after us, and, moving a little further down the road, managed to get the elite almost every time, which was mildly annoying, but she left after half an hour or so - when she returned later she moved along the other way, and soon vanished. By the end RedRydeR had earned 48.91%, to reach level 50, plus 1030 pet points, while Kit was up by 99.15%, and safely into level 44. They got 4 skill points each; as they level up, the skill exp per kill there will increase.

RedRydeR checked Merac, and found a new quest, which just involved another trip to level five of Maargadum Jail, this time to fight the death mask lancers and death mask soldiers. Back in Randol the Master Rogue had a new passive skill for her to learn - Critical Increase, which for 573 skill points (for the first five levels, there's another when she reaches 80, then 108 and three more) increases her critical rate by 75, from 390 to 465 - the more times she scores a critical hit, for double damage, the better.

After the food break, SirKit's search for new quests came up blank, but RedRydeR was able to do the Jail quest quickly enough - not only did Merac's archbishop give her a reward, he sent her on to Healer Yabo, who also rewarded her, so that between them they gave 4.53%, 6 skill points, and 100,000 gold...the entire outing brought 4.75% and 9 skill points. Red also got the quest to kill the Death Knight, from Patrol Guard Noa, but it would take more than 3,920,000 experience and 3 skill points to get me to fight the big boss in the Jail's final room - his magic attack hits hard, and he isn't fighting solo, either.

With RedRackham over on Cariae-5 to supply the solo party, AmityBlaise had a busy evening in Prokion Temple, in the "mirror" corridor room fighting the orc fighters and single orc axeman. The place was pretty busy, but I had very few passers-by as that is a quiet section, since most approaches are guarded by orc sergeants. By the time the Sunday Quiz was approaching, Amy had gone up by 70.13%, moving into level 30 - she had also earned 570 skill points, as well as 300 guild points. Unless SirKit has a need for a lower-level party companion at some point, once Amy gets to level 31, and is awarded her own +10 armour and weapons set, so that she can return the other set to Karella, any further advancement will be a pretty low priority, but at least she has some spare skill points now.

The GMs in charge of the Sunday Quiz started well, with a warning at 7:15 UK time that the Quiz Room doors would be opening in 45 minutes, which would be 30 minutes before the actual Quiz start. Things went downhill from there, though. I actually left things a little later than I usually do, to allow RedRackham to get his drake into level 31, but when he and Amy logged out, and I restarted Last Chaos on both computers, there was still over ten minutes left... and MistressDomino, when she logged in on Auzura-2, found a rather large mob around the domain merchant, as the doors had not yet been opened. I checked the forum shoutbox, and MD was able to announce that [GM]Cara was just about to open the doors, finally.

It took two or three minutes, but at last we were able to get in. The quiz itself began on time, after a warning that it was about to begin - the only problem was that question three asked us whether or not [GM]Krash was in charge of the "Pharaoh's Treasure" event. On Auzura-2 we were a canny crowd, and almost everyone voted "yes", as that has always been the correct answer in the past. Krash may have left Aeria Games a month or two back, but they'd hardly keep the question in but change the answer.

A lot of other Quiz Rooms had gone for the other option, though, and, after MD and Kaerella had successfully completed the quiz, and got their prizes, the forum shoutbox was pretty busy with complaints. [GM]Cara was there, though, and announced that anyone who had not completed the quiz because of the Krash question should fill out a "request tracker" application, and would get their heaven stones. She announced that in-game, too.

The last time the Krash question appeared, the GMs promised faithfully that it would be removed, so this was really their only option - repeating the quiz too often gets glitched, with no prizes actually appearing. Still, it means an awful lot of extra work for the game masters. I'm not entirely sure, but I think it may have been [GM]Ozymandias who made the promise to remove the Krash question. Honestly, sometimes I gaze upon his works and despair...

For a change, I switched across to the Katar server after the Quiz; ColonelScarlet provided the solo party bonus while doing a little work on his level 39 pink drake, but his minimum hit is 20, so the gnoll lancer's health did go down a bit. I think he needs to boost his "evil" rating by a couple of kills. On Katar Kaerella is level 32, with quite a good stash of skill points, so she went out to Prokion Temple, to the same room AmityBlaise had been in on Cariae-5, and fought the orc fighters and axeman for about an hour, just long enough to get 100 more skill points. That also got 25 guild points for the local branch of Discipline, and increased her experience by just 3.67%.

The "Race to the Finish" event was on Cariae at 10:30, so SirKit, as a pretty speedy character, went along to that. When I asked her, Cara confirmed that this was her last day with our game, so there were many farewells etc. It wasn't just a simple race from the north gate to the west gate, as advertised - instead we were told to "race to the entrance to ebony mine", and then to various other locations, including the west gate, velpist temple, hunter dranore, and berbank mill, before ending up at the north gate again. At each location Cara spawned the usual loot,; I wasn't always in time to pick up anything, but, as well as tool aids and the small HP and MP recovery pots, I did end up with 7 large defence potions, 9 large attack potions, 5 item drop boosters, and 2 skill point boosters. And it would have been a shame to miss [GM]Cara's final event.

It was getting late. but Kaerella on Sarissa logged on for the racing at 11:00pm, and had the advantage of a Juno NPC scroll to get her to some of the locations quickly...something higher-level characters don't have. But that was my lot, for the main computer - RedRackham on Cariae-4 had started to move his drake on through level 31 on the older computer, when last seen.

Run For Your Life - June 7th

RedRackham got disconnected after a couple of hours last night, but swung back into pet-levelling action before breakfast today - and got the drake into level 32 just after coffee.

Looking at the Events Calendar for the coming week, it seems that the return of the "Mad Monster Spawn" was just a one-off event to remind us of how things used to be - all we get in the coming days is the "set it and forget it" Runs. Today's is in the Temple of Forgetfulness, tomorrow's in the too-dangerous Misty Canyon, then Egeha, Dratan and Merac.

AmityBlaise logged in and, since she has now reached level thirty, was able to learn the five levels of Invisibility (once she had learned level one of Confusion), which is a required skill before she can opt to become a ranger or an assassin; she also learned the first five levels of Detect Weakness, to improve her hit rate, and the remaining four levels of Hawk Strike, quite a useful attack skill. So, that was 577 skill points spent.

AmityBlaise headed for Shuraine's oasis first, to get the ten helpings of soft sand that a quest asked for; she then hurried on to Prokion Temple, and the mirror half's corridor room again. The solo party she had joined was led by the cleric ThunderStorms, on level 42; another member, after a while, was the level 103 knight MidNightSky, who told us that he had been playing Last Chaos since the beta began, when the only server was Katar, with just two sub-servers. We've come a long way! Sadly, Amy had to log out when lunch was approaching, but by then she had got back 307 skill points, while going up by 34.99% and earning 163 more guild points for Discipline.

After lunch, getting the quest rewards for the two spider-killing quests, orc ornaments, and soft sand got Amy comfortably into level 31, so the new +10 armour set appeared in her inventory, along with the +10 level 33 weapons - she was able to trade her borrowed set back to Karella, and then traded her saleable loot across to MistressDomina, and her Wendy Bear pieces across to MistressFelicia.

The main afternoon session, though, starred SirKit, initially with MistressFelicia, back in Randol in merchant mode, supplying the solo party boost. Kit went to Maargadum Jail, and after fighting beast scythes on floor two, headed to floor three. The central area was in use, so Kit killed a few beast scythes in side rooms - but the middle soon became free, and SirKit moved on down.

I wasn't sure how Kit would manage, three levels below the beast flyers and with mainly just +8 armour, but he didn't lose health, and so settled in. Kit's lack of a drake as pet slowed things down on the loot-collecting front, so eventually MistressFelicia logged out, after just selling 23 bear pieces at 145,000 each, and RedRackham logged in, formed a combat party with Kit, got the skills of his level 32 drake reset, and headed down to Maargadum Jail.

RedRackham reached the third floor easily enough, and traded the drake across to Kit, who equipped it, added "pet item pick-up" to his skill bar, and was thus able to gather loot without stopping fighting. Kit's inventory was also a bit full, so he passed some recent armour and weapon drops across to RedRackham too. Red then teleported back to Merac village, moved to Randol, and took a pan flute to Lorraine, and then on to Jajan in Dratan, to get a brand-new level one pony. He then headed for the gnoll lancers in Merac, and started to level up his new pet.

Towards the end a level 41 rogue called Isgor arrived, and asked to join the party. She was using attack and defence minerals, and I saw her use a large attack potion too - but what she didn't seem inclined to use were health potions. I gave her ample warning when I had to log out, but as I ran out of the room, so that I could make a note of Kit's experience gain before logging out, her health was declining dangerously fast. All those beast flyers with only one target could lead to problems, at her level.

SirKit had in fact added 36.27%, 902 pet points, and 195 skill points; this persuaded me, after the early evening food break, to spend 620 skill points on improving Kit's passive skills. Kit also did a couple of messenger-type quests, including a visit to Owl Village in Merac, adding 5.36%. And a level 5 titan called joshua55 talked him out of 50,000 gold... I threw in a pair of +3 beast pants,which were a Jail drop, and an evasion-based accessory too.

By then RedRackham had got his new pony into level 4, and raised its Sympathy from 50% to 83% - but he had to log out, so that Kit could move over to the older computer, after a small bit of mining to stock up on quality stones, and RedRydeR could log on.

RedRyder and SirKit formed a combat party this time - which meant that Kit wouldn't get very much experience, but Red would get the full amount and a little bonus too, so that the use of a platinum blessed iris, to triple her experience gain, was a good idea. I had also decided to use a crit potion, to speed up the action - if most of Red's hits were critical ones, then the regular fighters and "speer" men should just about be dead by the time they reached her.

The first hour went well, using a pbi and a crit - RedRydeR went from level 50 to 52, adding 229.71%, 7 skill points, and 821 pet points, while using 39 experience boosters, one on each elite sphinx speer man I killed... twelve times the normal experience meant around 8,000,000 experience per kill, with the x3 from the pbi and the x4 from the xpb stacking.

The second hour got a little more complicated - I've never known that particular spot to get so busy. AngelofSilence had appeared early on, but immediately gone away, but in the second hour there were sorcerers, rogues and titans. The level 51 titan NoOne sat down next to SirKit, so I invited him to join the combat party, asking him not to help with attacking the elite, as I was using experience boosters. He just about complied on that, except a couple of times, and no doubt his other fighting made up for any experience I lost on those two kills.

I don't think NoOne had very good armour, as he seemed to use quite a few health potions, and often went to sit down to recharge. A rogue called Shanke, from the C4RNAGE guild, killed one elite and a few regulars - sadly, me typing in that I didn't think there were enough targets for another player there meant that I was too late to help NoOne when he got attacked from behind while fighting a different speer man...he died, but returned from town, riding his dragon, not long after. I didn't see what happened, as I was concentrating on fighting the elite again, but I suspect he got killed again almost at once... he vanished, anyway, and soon logged out.

The second hour brought in slightly less experience as each level is longer than the previous one, but RedRydeR did manage to gain two more levels, to reach level 54, adding 187.98%, along with 6 skill points and 773 pet points, while using 45 experience boosters. Once the second pbi and crit potion had ended, I continued for about another half hour, so that the whole session saw RedRydeR add 425.15%, 16 skill points and 1741 pet points.

SirKit levelled up too; he hadn't done any fighting, though he kept RedRydeR buffed with Divine Shield and Concentration, and indeed gave those buffs to NoOne when convenient. In all he added 57.92%, taking him into level 45, plus 15 skill points.

The "Dungeon Run" in the Forgotten Temple (or Temple of Forgetfulness - almost every location has two translations of its name, though I don't usually mention Belfist Temple, Procyon Shrine, or indeed the Tomb of Theo) was scheduled for nine o'clock, UK time, on Auzura-5, so I logged Rage in over there, while RedRackham back on Cariae-4 did a little pet-levelling. The attendance seemed pretty low - as I was early, I got into what might be called the "main" party, but, fighting in the first main room, I didn't really have a chance to surge ahead with some other party members.

I got through enough health potions in that room, and nearly died once, as well as having a long battle with about four endemic demons, which merged together on top of me so I had no idea what I was doing or which I was targeting. I looked at the corridor leading onwards, and checked up on Arch Liches, which were lurking there... hmm, aggressive level 100 boss monsters, with an area of effect magical attack, and a highly damaging Stun? I decided that trying to run past them solo might not be the best of ideas.

Some party members did run through to the far end of the Temple, though, and reported that they were richly rewarded, with lots of item drop boosters, skill point boosters, and so on. I hadn't thought that people were supposed to race past the monsters to get to the far end, I had assumed that, like Merac and Dratan runs, the idea was to kill everything along the way. Oh well, I did pick up some gold, and I avoided getting killed, which is the main thing - and Rage gained 0.05% experience.

After logging out from Auzura-5, back on Cariae RedRyder was able to learn the sixth level of Mind Training, for 225 skill points, increasing her magical resistance/evasion, and sell some drops. RedRackham logged out briefly while SirKit and RedRydeR traded across their recent crop of Wendy Bear pieces to MistressFelicia; then she went into merchant mode selling the pieces, just next to the non-player character who redeems them for prizes, Sharoyan. Tomorrow is the last day of this particular event, so I don't want to be left with too many when Sharoyan disappears.

RedRackham logged back in, and soon got his pony to level 6...and before level 7 was reached, it reached 100% Sympathy, so that the "armour increase" buff it gives now contributes the whole amount, not just a lower percentage. The mage KiaOra was also fighting there again, but, when I last looked, there was no sign of her guildie HoneyBun.

The End of the Bears - June 8th

MistressFelicia managed to sell out of all 212 Wendy Bear pieces last night fairly quickly, this time at just 95,000 gold each, so that was another twenty million or so earned. There was just time to log her out, and bring MistressDomino in instead, for an overnight selling session on Auzura-5... but this morning I found that the game had had a "send error message?" crash almost immediately, after she'd only had the chance to sell two damage boosters.

RedRackham did rather better with his new pony though, which levelled throughout the night, and reached level 14 at breakfast time. After breakfast I gave MistressDomino a chance for some more selling, but things were slow; someone bought a chaos ball. and then someone else bought the perfect stones MD was selling. Before coffee, somebody bought all the remaining chaos balls, at a price 60% higher than I'd charge on Cariae, and then some mana stealers went, so my gold reserves were starting to look a bit healthier.

After coffee, the priority was to get RedRydeR the half level she needed to reach level 55, so she and SirKit went to their preferred elite sphinx speer man spot. I didn't think any extra boost like a pbi would be needed, and indeed Red did reach her new level before lunch. She went up by 58.32%, and got her drake 1305 pet points, while SirKit, as her combat party support, added 26.60%; they each added 10 skill points.

The royal knight uffo1, who like Kit is now level 45, arrived after about an hour, so I recruited him into the combat party. I can't say he did a huge amount of fighting, as he had to be afk for a while, which may be just as well as he's one of the people who doesn't mind if his health bar is down to 20%, he'll still dash out and attack another speer man. In a combat party, though, afk members are always welcome.

RedRackham had got his pony into level 15 just before logging out, and went back to his gnoll lancer on Cariae-4 over the lunch break. After lunch MistressDomina had a quick look around town, and checked up on what accessories Roy's merchant house had available, with a view to seeing if a suction of life accessory for SirKit might be had relatively cheaply.

It may have been a mistake with one too few zeroes, but on the third page of the accessories, MD found a Chains of Tiger accessory being sold by HighRueiro for two million gold - and in my view even twenty million would be cheaper than average. A "CoT" may not be as good as a Tears of Knight ("ToK"), but it adds 16 to physical prowess (strength), and 8 to close range physical attack, so is a useful accessory for a knight to equip. I also found a Necklace of Wind offering 58 hit (health) points, 5 defence, and twice 5% suction of life, being sold by Wredota for five million, which seemed a useful thing for SirKit to equip, too.

Those got transferred to SirKit later, but the main session for the afternoon involved RedRydeR - and since Red was now level 55, it also involved my cleric Kaerella, who on level 70 was just fifteen levels ahead, the maximum for a party without the lower member having their experience gain "capped".

A while back, Auzura's Kaerella, when level 70, had teamed with Elvastar, on level 60, at the sphinx fighters etc, and got good experience despite the sphinx types being blue-named for her; this worked again today for the Kae/Red team. Kaerella only added 4.75%, along with 19 skill points, since at her level the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff to one's double experience and skill exp gain is no longer available, but that's just as well, as otherwise she'd be in danger of reaching 71 before RedRydeR reaches 56; Red added 33.69% and 39 skill points, so a couple more similar sessions ought to see her reach level 56.

I had been wondering if I'd offended her somehow, as I hadn't seen her recently - but Dratan's raid boss, Kamira, dropped by during the afternoon. I automatically logged Kaerella out, and teleported my level 98 mage Keerella to the spot - she killed Kamira easily enough as usual, and got all the regular bits and pieces like moonstones and tool aids, but no rare accessory. Kee logged out, and Kaerella returned, continuing where she had left off.

The session ended slightly early, so that various items could be traded between characters, including loot to MistressDomina and Wendy Bear pieces to MistressFelicia, and some weapons and armour were moved around too. Then RedRackham was back in pet-levelling action over the early evening food break - and the pony reached level 16, growing up to be a nice sturdy horse. MistressFelicia went into merchant mode to sell the Wendy Bear pieces for the last time, again at 95,000 each, and sold out by the end of the break - so that was another 61 pieces sold, making her total income over the two weeks around 80,000,000 gold.

For the evening, I was rather hoping to get enough Wendy Bear sets of pieces to get MistressBlaze on Auzura a pirate costume. I really couldn't think of any Cariae character who would benefit from having a costume cover, the active ones will hopefully be upgrading their armour soon and not want to be tied down for 30 days, or have +15 pieces already that wouldn't benefit from the "bonus book of melding" add-on... and besides, there are so many people around wearing the costumes already.

MistressBlaze returned to Maargadum Jail's third level, but the central area was in use by a knight for all the time I was there, so I had to settle for one of the side rooms, and a few nearby beast scythes while the flyers and archers were respawning. MB already had a few pieces from her recent adventures there, and I managed to get three sets - however, to get the set of costume covers, you have to lose your first game of rock paper scissors with Sharoyan, and I kept winning that first game, and losing the second or third, so that what I mainly got was just 5 each of greater healing potions or greater mana potions.

MistressBlaze finished her session by doing an outstanding quest - killing ten of the giant larvae down in south-east Merac.. In all, including some assorted quest rewards, she gained 19.10% in level 47, plus 137 skill points and 644 pet points.

Kaerella over on Katar had also got a few Wendy bear pieces from her recent session, so she had an hour or so back in Prokion Temple, fighting first a mixture of orc fighters and orc axemen, and ending up in my favourite back room fighting the axemen and sergeants, but she was unable to get a complete set of the pieces by the time I had to finish. She added 10.57% and 175 skill points, anyway, plus 72 guild points for Discipline. She ended up selling the pieces she had got back in Randol, sitting next to Sharoyan on Katar-5, for 95,000 - most people there seemed to be asking 180,000 or 200,000, so while she only had 22, they sold fairly steadily, and they'd all gone by ten past ten, so Kae had earned a couple of million or so, even if she won't be running around dressed as a pirate. That left enough time for RedRackham to log on, over on Cariae-4, for an hour or so's pet-levelling.

Back on Auzura, I'd discovered, just in time, where I'd kept my Wendy Bear pieces from last year's event - on a storage healer called LadyAuzura. So, I I'd traded the pieces across to MistressBlaze, and after another set or two of potions, she finally got the mage pirate costume cover set. She immediately put it on (it can be worn by itself in town unmelded, though it doesn't give any defence benefit unless it has been melded onto one's existing armour) - and went into merchant mode by Sharoyan, with the usual "The Wendy Bear Necessities" headline, and the usual price. Sales were steady, but someone would have to be a bit optimistic to take the whole quantities of some pieces, so I guess LadyAuzura will get some pieces back to keep in storage for next year.

The costume, melded or not, should last for thirty days. The in-game clock in Last Chaos doesn't really join up properly with real time, but when the prize was won the time was 33 - 7 - 5 - 7, and the expiration time is given as "year 35, month 7, day 5, time 7", so if I keep a watch on the clock, which is above the compass-map in the top right-hand corner of the screen, I should know when the piratical look will vanish. It would have been nice to have got RedRackham a costume, as he is named after a pirate (as in Tintin's adventure "Red Rackham's Treasure"), but if he was pet-levelling when the time ran out, he would suddenly be fighting in his underwear, and pretty soon be lying dead on the ground, as a character "wears" the cover, rather than the armour itself, in some strange abstract way.

The maintenance downtime is scheduled for 2:00am UK time, an hour later than usual, to be more convenient for Korean time. What the new patch will bring, we have no idea, it might even extend the Wendy Bear event for another week. Tomorrow we will know what new delights have been introduced.

An Unexpected Event- June 9th

The overnight patch was a pretty substantial one, though its main achievements seem to have been to end the Wendy Bear event...and the enigmatic comment "New map features have been added - check them out!" hints that something else has happened, though initially nobody seemed sure what. As a "map" can just mean the "M" window feature that shows the geography of your current region, or can mean the actual region itself, speculation was, as they say, rife.

RedRackham didn't find any changes to the gnoll lancer area, anyway, and was able to resume his pet-levelling before breakfast, soon joined there by the mage KiaOra. Over on Katar, though, her small financial gain from selling the bear pieces urged Kaerella to lash out on a better weapon, and after searching 64 pages of Roy's merchant mart, decided that the 110 million RangerTheDanger wanted for a level 33 pair of +15 daggers wasn't unreasonable, and bought them. Collector Ryl changed them into the "Pheonix" bow equivalent for another 100,000 gold - and Kae's physical attack was boosted from 404 (with a +10 bow) to 564. That ought to speed up her skill point farming nicely. Hopefully it will increase slightly once the bloodseals have been added.

Over on Cariae, MistressDomina spent the same sum on a new healer wand for my cleric Kaerella, put into Roy's merchant mart by LOCUST, though not one she can use for a while. This one is only +14, a Judgement' Rainbow Wand, but it is green-named and has the proper five seals - blue-named ones have a slightly higher attack, but not such a good hit rate, so things work out roughly the same.

MistressDomina traded the wand across to RedRydeR, who'd replaced my pet-leveller on the older computer; Red then spent 2,362,800 gold converting Kaerella's old 60/62 +13 armour set into its rogue equivalent, from Peaceful to Ardent, and the level 61 +15 weapon too. When she can wear the new armour set her physical defence will rise from 1612 to 1815; so far she can at least wear the gloves without a 50% penalty, making the figure 1688.

Red traded the new wand across to Kaerella; Kae's current wand, the level 69 Violeta Wand +15, has magic attack stats of 200 + 351 + 50 (making 601), while the level 73 Eres Bonita Wand +15 she already had waiting will give 289 + 385 + 50 (making 724)... this Judgement Raindow Wand +14 gives 321 + 435 (making 756), but one can easily add a 24-hour platinum refining stone to temporarily get it up to +15, or indeed +16, adding a bit to the second figure and bringing back the bonus + 50. The theory is that one can buy an awful lots of platinum refining stones for the difference in price between a +14 and +15 weapon...

Kaerella and RedRydeR headed out to the sphinx types for a shorter than average morning session. Kamira didn't drop by, unfortunately, but Kaerella added 2.07% and 9 skill points, while, helped by the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, RedRydeR gained 14.62% and 17 skill points. They are really ready to try a teaming in the Tomb of Theos, but going there and starting all the potions Kaerella would need just wouldn't be sensible so soon after a weekly maintenance with a substantial patch, as sudden "emergency maintenance" downtimes are more aptly described as probable than possible. And my playing time over the next 24 hours is a bit limited, too.

There was just time before lunch for a bit more trading across of items between Kaerella and MistressDomina, which, with the opening of some upgrade boxes, means that now Kae is carrying enough platinum refining stones to give herself a useful defence boost for 24 hours. Clerics don't function too well as tanks, so the more defence against screaming zombies she can get, the better. And then RedRackham went back to Merac for some pet-levelling.

RedRackham was able to continue through the afternoon, so that by the early evening food break the horse had reached level 20. The afternoon session, however, belonged to Kaerella - Kaerella on Katar, that is. First of all she checked through the merchant mart for a better accessory to use, and found a Necklace of Wind with 10% suction of life, plus 16 dexterity (or "swiftness of reflexes") and 5 magical defence being sold by xShinobix for 30 million, so bought it. On the way to the teleporter in Randol Kae passed someone selling a level 33 +15 weapon for 35 million more than I had paid earlier, which was a relief. Kind of "buy the weapon, get the accessory free"...

I'd not managed to find a solo party to join, when I entered Prokion Temple, so I accepted when a titan there recruited me to his party - which did actually have another member somewhere. Maestro13 was level 26, and asked for my help to level up a little. That seemed a reasonable request, particularly as him being six levels below me meant that even shared, I'd get almost as much skill exp per kill.

Katar-5's Prokion Temple was surprisingly busy. The back room was being used, and the corridor room was being used - we stopped just after there with a couple of linked rooms filled with orc axemen and fighters, but the Maestro wanted orc sergeants, so we ran across to the mirror half, going just beyond that half's corridor room, where a mixture of axemen and sergeants were to be had.

We got Maestro13 into level 27, and indeed a quarter of the way through that level by the time he had to leave. Luckily a solo party was then available, so Kaerella was able to continue in that spot for the rest of the afternoon, reaching level 33 just after the titan logged out. In all, Kae went up by 32.14%, and earned 357 skill points, as well as getting 242 guild points for the Discipline guild. Now that she is in the new level, orc fighters are no longer much use, it looks as if it has to be mainly orc axemen now for Kae, with a few orc sergeants if necessary; that session did add a bit more experience than would have been ideal, but, with over 15k of unused sp now, Kaerella can perhaps afford it.

I expected the evening session to be the usual short one, but arrangements for other activities fell through at the last moment. That meant that SirKit's trip to Maargadum Jail lasted longer than I'd expected. Towards the end a knight called Burninater barged in and seemed to be getting most of the beast flyers, which was a bit annoying - still, if I see him there again when I arrive, I'll know that I too can just rush in and start fighting.

SirKit had joined a solo party hosted by bluray, and eventually took over as leader. There was a fair amount of chatting going on, with the level 91 knight Athalantar trying to persuade Kit to become a Guild Adviser of his newly-formed guild, but Kit's first loyalties are to Discipline... and anyway, Kit isn't that major a character so wouldn't be playing enough to make a good job of the "GA" role. Too bad it wasn't on Auzura rather than Cariae, my rogue Rage there is in the market for a new guild.

We decided after a while that there was an unannounced event giving 50% extra skill exp and experience - which only works out as 25% extra if one has the Elizabeth's Enhancement, but is still useful. SirKit stayed on level three of Maargadum Jail for the whole three hour length of the buff, and added 52.16%, along with 2556 pet points and 344 skill points. He picked up three heaven stones...and no less than seven drake eggs.

Checking Roy's merchant mart, SirKit noticed a pair of level 107 healer boots, b5e +15, on offer from DaizY for 950 million, but the merchant mart was so laggy that it took ages for pages to come up - I'd noticed that earlier when trying to buy the accessory, but it was worse now. MistressDomina, the one with the money to buy such things, logged in on Cariae-2, hoping it would be less laggy, but every stage took quite a while. Finally MD was able to get her new purchase into her inventory...and then, looking unsuccessfully for level 107 headgear, the pages came up almost instantaneously. So, Barbarienne's new armour set is almost complete, all she needs is to do some grinding for a few days to get to level 106, and then some more days to get to level 107. It would be nice to actually get to 109, since there are usually some +15 bows of that level available, but that would take months I think.

I looked in on the forum shoutbox, while waiting for Roy's pages to load, and [GM]Darasuum was there, goofing around. Somebody was asking if there was an extra experience event going on, and that obviously came as a surprise to the GM, so it may possibly have got turned off soon after that.

RedRackham had kept busy through the evening, which meant that his horse had reached level 21 by then... and it may indeed reach level 22 before I log out for the night. Oh, and the feeling on the forum was that the "new map features" were just some coding change that ought to reduce lag and decrease the chance of people getting stuck in the ground. If that is all, why didn't they just tell us, rather than making a mystery of it?

A Run Postponed - June 10th

RedRackham continued pet-levelling through the night, which meant that his horse had reached level 24 by the morning, having put on three more levels since MistressDomina logged out, after a final look through the merchant mart stocks. Today I knew I wouldn't be able to have an active morning playing session, so he was able to keep going.

MistressDomina logged in after breakfast, and, after checking with Roy again briefly, went into merchant mode with heaven stones, moonstone boxes, skill point boosters, lucky smelting stones, berserker potions, physical attack potions, damage boosters, mana stealers, and runes of protection II on offer. The first sale was of five mana stealers, but it wasn't a very busy time of day, with America asleep, so it was a while before some heaven stones went. A little later the rest of the mana stealers went, so I was able to put one last mana stealer up for sale instead, which hadn't "stacked" with the others. The last six of the heaven stones went next, followed by the non-stacking mana stealer.

RedRackham got his horse into level 25 at around 11:15am, UK time, and continued through lunch; MistressDomina managed to sell out of moonstone boxes, and had managed to shift about a hundred million's worth of items by the time she had to log out - to allow SirKit his chance for a bit of fighting.

SirKit went back to the third floor of Maargadum Jail; the session started a bit late, but he managed to fight the beast flyers there for almost two hours. Within the first hour he reached level 46, which meant that the beast flyers, at the same level, gave their best skill exp per kill. The quest to gather ten "beast hearts" was quickly completed, and when he'd finished there, Kit teleported back to town, and rode out to Rau at the column of magic to get his reward - 100,000 gold, 10 skill points, and 4.29% experience. That took his total experience gain for the session up to 26.79%, along with 177 skill points and 968 pet points. Back in town he learned the single level of Dark Immunity, granting him immunity to the Blind skill. That took 155 skill points, so he still ended up ahead on the session.

For the evening, I wanted to do a little work towards getting my archer Kaerella on Auzura closer to level 87, so that she can wear the whole of the 85/87 armour set, and pass on her old 70/72 set to MistressDomina. Rage, my level 92 rogue, logged on, and teleported out to the entrance to the Tomb of Theos, to check on its "Condition" - and the bars on the chart were only about 10% away from maximum easy, so Kaerella replaced RedRackham on the older computer, and teleported over to join Rage. They formed an equal party, and went in.

For the first hour Kaerella used a platinum super skill pill, for triple experience gain, and went up by 26.58% - she and Rage each got 4 skill points, too. Rage did most of the fighting, with Kae joining in once the screaming zombie had got into range for her, standing a bit further back. For speed, Rage used a crit potion, so that most of her hits were double-damage critical ones. I really shouldn't have used that pbi at that stage though, as the "teatime" event was 75% extra experience, which didn't stack, so instead of getting 200% more than she would otherwise have got, Kae only got 125% more.

I did have one ks-er, a knight called lorddavid1, who I don't think can have been over level 25. I did say that it wasn't polite to start ks-ing without asking, but okay - he never said a word, and didn't stay very long. I doubt if he could do enough damage to a screamie to get much experience, he really ought to have been sp-farming in Prokion Temple.

Rage and Kae continued after the hour-long enhancements ran out, and it was probably over two and a half hours in all that they spent fighting the screaming zombies. I had a nice surprise, though, Argoth got in touch - that's Elvastar's (or Ratel's) titan. With running out of bandwidth, summer happenings, and apparently getting hooked on the "Twilight" series of novels etc, he hasn't been around much, and had apparently been concentrating more on attempting to do some pet-levelling when he was on.

He switched across to his level ninety-something knight Ratel after a while, and was relieved to find that he was still in the "Twisted" guild, and welcomed back. As a temple knight he finds the Tomb too slow, and was out in Egeha...but was getting through a lot of expensive medium-size health potions. Without using boosters, his progress was pretty slow, but he was making a profit on the drops.

By the end of the session, Kaerella had added another15.37%, taking her pretty close to halfway through level 86, at least. She had gained 6 more skill points, while over the entire session her drake, SirFrancis, gained 1662 pet points. Rage had gone up by 5.46% in total, and got 11 skill points in all, plus 2763 pet points, as she did rather more hits per kill.

I logged out soon after Ratel quit for the night; for me it was around ten to nine, and I wanted to get RedRackham back into his pet-levelling action, and move Rage across from Auzura-4 to Auzura-5, as the "Dratan Run" was scheduled to start at nine. So, Red hurried out to his gnoll lancers...and Rage teleported to Dratan, and rode down to its north gate... but where were the giant statues of warriors, which show the route for the run?

Refreshing the web page showed that the event had been postponed for an hour - so I could have stayed a bit longer in the Tomb of Theos. The last event I remembered being postponed ended up being cancelled entirely, so my expectations were not high, while I settled down to getting today's blog as finished as I could. There was an announcement for the event, with 15 minutes to go until the new start time, so we seemed to be back on track.

As usual the "Run" was pretty pointless. There was a drop of loot close to town where, after killing a few monsters, those of us who were there in time managed to pick up a few items, but any other drops would have vanished by the time we got there. Rage was in a party with two or three other people... I continued until eleven, and the theory was that we had reached the final giant statue...but all the flutons and patriarch botises, plus almas and other high-level nasties, would have taken a while after that to finish, with no reward likely to appear. Still, Rage added 0.43%, and 699 pet points, and avoided getting killed, though there were a couple of difficult moments when I found myself one-versus-one with something about thirty levels above me. If it had been at its proper time, I could have stayed to the finish, but, as it was, I had to log out for the night.

A Fresh Start - June 11th

There was one of Microsoft's important updates overnight, but luckily it didn't download on the older computer very quickly at all, so that there was no restart to install it in the early hours, and RedRackham continued pet-levelling through until breakfast. The newer computer restarted, but as Last Chaos wasn't running on it, that didn't cause any problems.

I closed LC on the older computer, and the remainder of the update downloaded, so I switched off the machine while I went off shopping, allowing it to install its new stuff, then switched things back on when I got back - RedRackham kept busy on the new computer while that was happening. Once both machines were active, I was able to move some items around, so that on Cariae Barbarienne now has the level 107 boots, and MistressDomina has some more loot...as indeed does MistressDomino over on the Auzura server, including what Rage was able to pick up from last night's Dratan run.

As usual it all took a while, though in many ways moving stuff around and shopping is just as much "playing the game" as is killing monsters or doing quests. But what took most time was resetting my wizard Keerella's skills. I had been thinking of waiting until level 100 for that, but noticed that level 98 is when the sixth and final level of Chaos Nova becomes available. That is a skill, with its main five levels at 70, which I had avoided, since it increases one's enemies' attack, but with good evasion, I am assured, that is a minor detail. It attacks up to ten monsters that are within ten metres of you, and has a power of, at level six, 600%, hitting twice...it doesn't require a specific target.

While MistressDomna did have a skills reset card in storage, I discovered that it cannot be traded, so another card which was still in the item mall records section had to be "gifted" across. Double-clicking it removed all Keerella's skills (curiously, there was no "are you sure?" window, or confirmation, it just did it), and reset her skill points. Up till then Kee had had 974 unused sp, now suddenly she had all 11,113 to play with. So, she maxxed out all her passive skills again, got the early-level mage skills she needed including the level 30 one, chose again to become a wizard rather than a witch, allocated her stat points (17 each to constitution and dexterity, and 230 to intelligence, which, one click at a time, took a while), and grabbed the general skills she needed, ignoring, except for a few first levels needed before other skills could be got, energy bolt, energy field, energy cutter, mana recovery, transformation, arch enemy, flame field, and fear.. all skills I'd not have room for on my skill bar anyway. The skills I did get were sloth, curse, flame storm, chakra shield, haste, scud, nova break, terra spear, freeze arrow, spell focus (though I didn't have the 151 sp left for its fifth level)...and the six levels of chaos nova, which between them accounted for 2450 sp, 22% of the number Kee had had for redistribution.

After all that, there was only time for Kee to farm some green herbs and mine some quality stones, before she logged out for lunch. RedRackham, meanwhile, continued with his pet-levelling down in Merac....and he continued over lunch and through the afternoon too, so that the horse reached level 29.

Keerella headed for the Tomb of Theos after lunch and, finding that it was set to about 80% easy, went in. To experiment, she started off by running into the first main room and aggravating as many screaming zombies as possible, then using chaos nova and flame storm on them, but it soon became clear, after the horse buffs she'd added before going in ran out, that her evasion, and 10% suction of life, wouldn't be good enough every time to keep her healthy, and she had to run off down the corridor, using health candy canes, with the zombies in pursuit, with her health getting as low as 200 points, which was a bit hair-raising.

Probably working like that would be possible using an hour-long health stealer, that is something I will have to try; generally the ring's 5% suction of mana kept her supplies of that up, anyway. Kee's drake, Greedo, took a lot of damage that way too. So, Kee settled down to the more conventional one-at-a-time attack, using mainly terra spear, and that worked, as ever, without any problems.

Even with a heavy-hitting skill like that, though, the screamies took a while to kill. By the end of the afternoon Keerella had just added 1.05%, plus 21 skill points...and a useful 2519 pet points. So, great for pet-levelling, not so good for sp. Since, with the screaming zombies two levels above Kee, they gave 990 skill exp each, Kee must have killed around 212 of them.

A knight called Gozzy was there too for a while, but at level 73 he had to be careful - and wasn't careful enough, as he did die once, he reported, presumably round the corner and out of my sight. There was a mage wearing the 55-57 set a little later who managed to lure and kite a couple of the screamies successfully, with a long recovery period, no doubt for her health and her nerves, between them. Towards the end an assassin-rogue came in, and recalled a low-level rogue to be power-levelled, but they didn't stay with me long.

When RedRackham's bare-handed attack speed was increased, the latest setback for pet-levellers, I'd taken off his hit rate enhancing accessories. Recently, I'd been adding them back again - wouldn't you know that I'd invested a million in a 93 hit rate Necklace of Earth only just before the change? Replacing the 93-er hadn't stopped him from sparring with his gnoll lancer indefinitely; replacing the Eye of Gust 56-er had been okay, too, getting Red's physical hit rate to 380. However, replacing the Ring of Power, with its 75 hit rate, taking the stat to 455, was a step too far, and the gnoll lancer's health bar gradually declined. "Hit rate" doesn't change the attack speed, it just makes an attack more likely to hit, and less likely to miss, and so a higher hit rate would mean that the gnoll lancer was hit for 18 damage more often per hour.

On Cariae, Kaerella saw a +15 level 85 healer wand on offer, selling via Roy from Emblem for 250 million, so, after getting some gold from MistressDomina, bought that, and put the +14 one she'd recently bought into the merchant mart to sell. Having a fully-plussed weapon will make like simpler for Kae - once she gets the necessary fifteen levels, that is.

RedRydeR traded the level 50 gloves she is no longer wearing over to SirKit, who got Collector Ryl to convert them into the knight equivalent. Equipping the Aventics Gauntlets instead of the level 45 Warnin ones increases Kit's physical defence from 1440 to 1559, since we're moving from +8 ones to a +13 pair.

The main evening session was a team-up on Cariae-5 of Kaerella and RedRydeR, out with the sphinx types, including that more hidden-away elite sphinx speer man. It didn't take awfully long for Kamira to tend up - and it didn't take much time at all for Keerella to kill her. The drops were just the usual useful oddments... but it was fun to use chaos nova to get rid of the death goddesses that Kammy spawns - all gone in one go.

The session was otherwise routine, but productive. I didn't have any visitors, for a change, so by the end Kaerella had gone up by 6.31%, plus 25 skill points - and RedRydeR had just managed to reach level 56, adding 44.53% plus 51 skill points.

RedRydeR reaching level 56 meant that she could equip her new level 61 jacket and pants; it also meant that, back in Randol, she could trade her old level 51 ones across to SirKit. Kit then changed them into their knight equivalents, courtesy of Collector Ryl, who charged almost a quarter of a million each, and now looks rather impressive, with his physical defence raised from 1559 to 1801. That is very nearly as much as RedRydeR has now, despite the difference in level, which shows how sturdy knight armour is.

So, RedRackham logged in for a little more late-evening pet-levelling. I thought from checking the web page earlier that the first Merac Run, on Auzura-5, wasn't starting until ten, UK time - but when I checked, the page now said nine (1:00pm PDT), so I don't know if I was confusing the days or what. I missed the early part of the Run, but Rage caught up with them just before the final turning towards the Misty Canyon teleporter. I thought I might as well join in for the last few minutes - but I ended up fighting for about an hour, including going one-on-one with stuff 45 levels above me, which can be a bit fraught.

There was actually some loot spawned for us towards the end, in a rather dangerous position, so I had to watch my health rather carefully, and my drake's, as we tried to pick up the usual large attack and defence potions, skill point boosters, and item drop boosters. Not surprisingly, our ranks started to thin out after that, and by half past ten we were really only a party's worth, including some daring low-level players. I stayed another five minutes, but we really didn't have the firepower left for the really big types.

Still, it was an enjoyable outing; Rage's drake may have lost a bit of health, but added 614 pet points...and Rage herself went up by 0.45%. By the end of the evening, RedRackham's horse was only an hour or so away from level 30.

Flyers and Fighters - June 12th

By breakfast time, RedRackham's horse had reached level 31, the first level at which it is possible to change a horse into a mount. As usual, though, we will go on until level 37 is reached, for the maximum attack and defence "horse buffs".

Someone on the forum shoutbox posted a link to "Last Chaos para America Latina", where the special Football World Cup related event has already started - we stand to get it next Wednesday, after maintenance. It seems that relatively inoffensive little monsters will be appearing throughout the lands, which when killed will drop a "game ball". Armour Trader Rowel will exchange ten of those for a "golden ball"... and if you get no less than fifty of those, he will exchange them for a "final ball". That should entitle you to some "wonderful" prizes, as well as a flag of one of the nations taking part, which will go in your "events" inventory. Take it to Estella, and it looks as if you can bet on the winner of the soccer tournament...

The two types of ball can be stored and sold, we are assured, which is interesting. As the balls don't drop as loot from regular monsters, I'm assuming that to get them one will need to fight in the open, and not in dungeons, such as the Tomb of Theos or Prokion Temple. Whether the special football monsters spawn randomly, or appear regularly at specific locations like the Halloween pumpkin ghosts, we will discover in due course, but it may be a good method of earning money on some of the servers where I only have low-level characters.

After coffee, my morning session, after a quick look to see if any items of weapons or armour on my wants list had turned up, involved SirKit getting his Elizabeth's Enhancement buff, joining a solo party, and heading for level three of Maargadum Jail again, to battle the beast flyers. It wasn't long before I noticed that we had a bonus 50% experience and skill exp running, so that the flyers gave 2750 skill exp each instead of the usual (including Elizabuff) 2200.

I had the place to myself, for most of the time, though a specialist sorcerer called kiwilaw did barge in and hog the central position for a while. By the time lunch was due, SirKit had added 29.46%, plus 234 skill points and 2088 pet points, which were enough to get Kit's drake into level 33.

My level 70 Cariae cleric Kaerella had an outstanding quest in the Temple of Forgetfulness, so after lunch she teleported down there, after applying suitable buffs, and ran through the place until she reached the jumping devils. The quest just required her to kill eight of them, which didn't take long - and the archbishop back in Dratan gave out the reward. He also told Kae to visit Translator Edgar - though his quest, I find, to kill, er, "collect information from" the Barren Eise back in the Temple doesn't come up until Kae is level 71. Still, mainly from the reward, Kaerella added 2.62% experience and 14 skill points, along with 78 pet points.

The main part of the afternoon, however, saw SirKit return to the beast flyers in Maargadum Jail, to make full use of the extra experience and skill exp on offer. Again somebody else barged in at one point, a titan called Candar; he did at least ask if Kit wanted to party with him, though, as he was in a solo party, Kit declined the offer. He seemed to find the flyer attacks a bit strong, retreating to the stairs before finally leaving. For Kit though the flyers were in a generous mood, so that in all he picked up six heaven stones during the session, as well as stuff from quite a few other "hands".

The solo party included the healer DaizY briefly, so I mentioned that I'd bought at least one piece of her old b5e armour. She is level 123 now, so would have moved on to something a bit higher. The party fluctuated in size, probably not helped by the leader, MANGA, calling it "death motion" rather than "solo", but was generally pretty full. By the time that my break was due, SirKit had managed to add another 43.18% experience, plus 341 skill points and 2414 pet points.

RedRackham had kept going over on Cariae-4, though I did have to change gnoll lancers at one point, when he wore down the health of the one he had been sparring with to about 20%. Its successor was made of sterner stuff, though, and kept a full health bar while the horse reached level 32. But then RedRackham had to log out, to allow RedRydeR to team up with SirKit.

The spot with the second elite sphinx speer man was in use, so RedRydeR and SirKit had to move to the other end of the cut-through, which may well have been no bad thing. There wasn't an elite to kill, so it was just a matter of hammering away at the regular sphinx fighters and sphinx speer men. Kamira did drop by after a while to offer some moral support - Keerella came along to thank her personally, but the drops she got didn't include a rare accessory, just the usual goodies. The unexpected bonus event was continuing, or indeed had morphed into an official event, as the "Happy Hour" from six to ten, UK time, was scheduled to be 50% extra experience and skill exp anyway.

Progress was pretty good, with that boost, and by the time my characters logged out, SirKit had gone up by 43.24% for just providing the combat party boost, plus 35 skill points (so the experience gain was almost exactly the same as his afternoon session, though this time with comparatively few skill points), and RedRydeR had earned 101.18%, 39 skill points, and 2616 pet points. Kit had levelled up, reaching 47, fairly early on - and Red just made it to 57 at the end. So, Red was able to equip her level 62 hood and boots, and trade the last two parts her old set across to Kit, who, once Collector Ryl converts them to the knight equivalent, will now be able to wear them. Red can also now use her level 61 Gunrose Crossbow, and so could trade the level 53 one across too, though Kit will need to gain a couple more levels before he can use the knight weapon of that level without a penalty.

So, RedRackham was able to log back in for an hour or so, to move his horse a little way further through level 32. The "Happy Hour" was the only scheduled event for today...in fact, the events calendar for the next week looks even worse than it has recently, with, apart from the Sunday Quiz, just a "Creature Carnival" and a "Class PvP" event. So, that side of things is looking rather bleak...

High Finance - June 13th

RedRackham took the night off. I very nearly put MistressDomina up in merchant mode on Cariae overnight, but decided that, with the GMs apparently working on a fix for problems with party-making, specifically some people's inability to leave a party, or even be kicked, the risk of an unscheduled maintenance raiding MD's inventory was too great.

Still, my pet-leveller was able to return to action at breakfast time, and worked steadily to get his horse up to the next level - and indeed level 33 was reached early in the afternoon.

SirKit logged in after coffee, and, for just over half a million for the pair, converted RedRydeR's old boots and hood into their knightly equivalents. Equipping them increased his physical defence from 1817 to 1923, which is probably rather more than he needs at present. Catching me in a good mood, a level 5 sorcerer called 816MAFIA managed to talk me into giving him some cash - I passed over 25,000 gold and three assorted accessories, since those are useful early on.

There was already a royal knight hard at work in the middle of Maargadum Jail's third level, so after killing a beast scythe or two up on the edge, Kit returned to town, and checked to see if there were any quests available. There were two, both being offered by the border guard captain - so first of all he rode down to the south-east corner of the map and the giant larvae, to kill ten of them, and then after getting the reward for that he returned to Jail, and killed the necessary thirty beast flyers in the convenient side room. Shortly after that the other knight left, so I was able to take over the central area for the rest of the morning.

As SirKit is a level above the beast flyers now, and the experience and skill exp gain was back to normal, the gain wasn't as swift as it was yesterday, but it was still all useful stuff. The rogue Isgor did ask about joining the party, but at that time the solo party I was in was full. A knight called LoganwitziG dropped by, but in lower-level armour, and wearing the ringmaster "Uncle Sam" top hat, wasn't there to fight, but rather to chat, it seemed.

By the end of the session SirKit had gone up by 22.24%, 180 skill points, and 1515 pet points....and getting the reward from Great Magician Minearm for the beast flyer quest after lunch added another 4.37% and no less than 60 skill points. Minearm then gave Kit the "beast leader" quest, to get three rings from the beast crawlers, so a trip down to level five is in his near future.

After lunch I had some paperwork to do - game-related stuff, but it took a while, as I'd decided that I really needed to know what undownloaded packages and other items I had on which servers and which accounts. Over the years, I have been tempted by various bargain offers, and it would be impossible to remember where everything was. I have very little on the Sarissa and Hatzring servers, except a few small loot wheel prizes... since I've played a little more on the newest server, Tairen, I see that there are a couple of useful packages waiting there to be used. The Katar server does slightly better - but my main two servers are Cariae, my original one, and Auzura, with its more Europe-friendly event times, and now at least I know where everything is.

It also helped to know which accounts had fairly full records sections, as you are only allowed 25 spaces across all the servers...particularly as there was a rather tempting offer today. with a 75% rebate on the "one and Only" pack, which has 50 heaven stones, and 25 each of the two types of rune, the MP and HP stealers, the large crits and berserker potions...and, more importantly, 25 chaos smelting stones. 13,999 aeria points is a lot of cash, but at a quarter of that, after the rebate, well, it's a reasonable deal. And this weekend there was an "instant tiered spender" event running, which meant that if one spent over 10,000 ap, one was given 6 MP stealers, 6 HP stealers, 29 platinum adrenalin, 4 power potions, 14 large crit potions, 4 berserker potions, 65 heaven stones, 20 lucky smelting stones, 3 platinum blessed irises, 3 platinum super skill pills, 275 experience boosters, 275 skill point boosters...and 10 more chaos smelting stones. The tiered event had been running for a day or so - but it overlapped with the rebate event by a few hours, making a rather delightful bargain. If one can get round to using all that stuff!

The paperwork meant a much abbreviated afternoon session, but once that was done, my Cariae mage Keerella logged on. I'd noticed that a knight of mine, sirDarth (not to be confused with SirDarth) was only level ten, so it seemed like a good idea for Kee to "power level" him in the Tomb of Theos. Keerella teleported out to the Tomb's entrance, and found that it was set to maximum easy; sirDarth already had the location on his memory scroll, so joined her there, and formed a party; he became her apprentice in the Guardian system too. Kee gave him some gold, so that he could afford the 30,000 admission fee (and a bit more in case of a disconnection), and in they went.

It didn't take too long to get sirDarth to level 20, helped along by the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff; in fact, Kee got him to level 22 before the early evening food break, so that he can wear the 25/27 armour set if necessary, and open another of Lorraine's treasure chests. Darth got his event weapon, and Keerella got ten more reputation points, to help her keep her thirtieth position on the Cariae reputation rankings. I must mention that only one other player who is under level 100 is ranked higher...

When the early evening food break began, sirDarth logged out, and RedRackham logged back in for some more pet-levelling, this time on Cariae-5 so that he could give Keerella a solo party. Once I was back at the computer, Kee returned to fighting, mainly to earn some pet points and a few precious skill points. The Tomb had been fairly quiet, as the Dratan Castle Siege had been going on, but then a few people arrived, mainly rather lower level that Kee. A level 39 assassin asked if she could ks me, and I agreed. She used a platinum blessed iris for triple experience, and a crit potion to increase her attack, which makes all the difference against monsters so much higher-level, and, since my experience fell from around 4.5 million to 2.7 million, she was managing to inflict about 40% of the damage.

By the end of the hour xXQcMawiiXx had gone up six levels - which makes me wonder if one of my characters could get a similar type of boost from ks-ing Kee, or Barbarienne, or Rage. It would be simpler than a full-on "power level", and not much different from just having an equal party with the lower-level character assisting, so it may well be something to investigate. Anyway, by about ten past eight, UK time, Keerella had earned 1.20% for herself, 20 much-wanted skill points, and 3646 pet points, as well as getting some gold, a moonstone box or two, and one minor armour drop, which will soon be sold to Merchant Geres.

For the Sunday Quiz, Kaerella and MistressDomino went along to the usual room on Auzura-2. Argoth, Ratel and Liezl were there, so Ratty did pretty well for heaven stones, but he told me afterwards that the computer that Ratel was on had developed a hardware problem. This was after question twenty, luckily, but is still a bit of a financial blow. Kae and MD got their prizes too - and then MD logged out, to allow RedRackham to get back to work.

Kaerella moved over to Auzura-5, as [GM]Stratos had announced that he was going to hold a "race" there. His idea of a race is a bit different from what [GM]JediMike or the now-departed [GM]Cara would do - he announced the winning coordinates, and getting there was up to us. The only problem was that his "finishing line" was high at the edge of the map, and almost impossible to get to. Since I had pet-levelled on treants there a while ago, I went along to my climbing-up point and attempted to ride or run along the line of peaks, but someone else got there first. It's a good view from up there, anyway. There was a second race, to a similarly inaccessible point across the lake, but I didn't manage to get there. Apparently the winners got 25 chaos balls each, which seems a reasonable prize.

So, apart from checking that the new item mall goodies had safely arrived, that was the end of today's entertainment, though RedRackham continued until the end of the evening with his pet-levelling endeavours. SirKit had noticed a few other pet-levelling knights in action fighting gnoll lancers when he'd ridden to the giant larvae, but they generally went further along than Red's preferred spot.

Kaerella versus the Zombies - June 14th

My Cariae pet-leveller, RedRackham, worked through the night safely, getting his horse well into level 34 by breakfast - and it reached level 35 at lunchtime. L:ast Chaos looked as if it was running a bit slowly this morning, but a restart of the game got things back to normal. MistressDomino meanwhile had been in merchant mode overnight on Auzura-5; the sales weren't spectacular, but it helped to build up her fighting funds. Now, if only I could find the items I want to buy...

The knight that Keerella power-levelled yesterday, sirDarth, logged in after coffee just long enough to do his level 20-ish Randol-based quests and get his special "neckless"; Lorraine's treasure chests gave him ten candies, a level 21 +4 sword, and 100,000 gold. But then it was time for SirKit to take over for the main morning session.

SirKit had the quest to kill "beast leaders", so buffed up, teleported to Maargadum Jail, joined a solo party, and ran down to level five. The first three beast crawlers he fought all provided the rings needed, though their magical attacks did knock a few hundred off Kit's health bar temporarily, so the quest was speedily completed - by the time the horse buffs ran out, Kit was back on level three, fighting the beast flyers.

Kit spent the rest of the morning session with the flyers, and their beast archer companions; some people in the solo party were just arranging to have a monster combo session as noon approached, by UK time, but that was when I had to log out. By then SirKit had added 10.24%, 88 skill points, and 783 pet points.

After lunch, however, it was time to step up a gear on Cariae. My cleric Kaerella teleported out to the entrance to the Tomb of Theos, and found that the place was set to maximum easy - so RedRackham logged out, and RedRydeR logged in, and teleported out to join her. They formed a party, and went in; and Kaerella added 24-hour platinum refining stones to her armour to get it up to +15, which gave her a physical defence stat of 2690.

The place wasn't particularly busy, though people came and went. The mage mAhAIKo was levelling a titan guildie of hers, who stood conveniently close to us in the corridor, a useful marker when one was running back after luring a zombie. In the second hour, a level 58 titan called THor asked to join the party, so we recruited him; he did have a tendency to go afk for a few minutes occasionally, but generally helped out with his stun and general attack. It meant the experience per kill had to be split three ways, but hopefully we killed a bit more quickly. We briefly had not just a god of thunder, but a lower-level knight called GodOfVengeance, who asked to ks a bit... and right at the end of the third hour a rogue called DooMKilleR gave us a little "help", too. THor had gone afk then, so when Kae and Red retreated to the safety of the teleporter's entrance room, we left him just standing there. The next time I checked, he had gone.

Kaerella was using platinum blessed irises, plus a crit potion, while RedRydeR just relied on the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff for double experience. The first hour added 46.72% for Kae, which took her into level 71, and 97.05% for Red. In the second hour Kae just added 35.88%, while Red quickly reached level 58, and gained 69.18%. During the third hour Kaerella managed to get into level 72, adding 35.03%, and Red added 62.89%, which got her into level 59. By then Red's new crossbow, hood and boots were all fully bloodsealed. Kaerella's drake had added 2515 pet points, while RedRydeR's had added 2097.

After the food break, the evening session was three more hours in the Tomb. The archer XPersephoneX was good company, and for a while also had a rogue companion, Jabar 241 - then she suggested we went to the "agm", which didn't mean the sphinx commanders were holding their annual general meeting deeper in the Tomb, it was the ancient grey mummies she had in mind. They seemed a bit high for Kaerella and, particularly, for RedRydeR, without the safety of the entry corridor to retreat down, so she went off alone. There was the titan STARLORD after that, while our second hour was a bit interrupted by the assassin-rogue VanityFiend, who, while she used lots of pots and minerals, and looked to me as if she was wearing the 70/72 armour set, had a great deal of difficulty trying to solo the screaming zombies.

I did try to help VanityFiend by healing her repeatedly, as well as using the "Encourage" buff, but I think she did die a number of times. I commented that she really needed a crit potion to boost her attack, but she said she was investigating how well she could fight with her new armour. She did finally level up before leaving. Luckily, the third and final hour of the evening was a bit more straightforward, though other people still came and went, such as a Russian night shadow, and the rogue NinjaAssAssin.

The first evening hour had seen Kaerella add 39.69%, with RedRydeR adding 65.20%; the second hour's figures were 31.20% and for Red just 29.61%, as she reached level 60 fairly early on, which meant that the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff stopped having any effect. In the third hour it was Kaerella's turn to level up, reaching 73, allowing her to start to use her blue, 5-sealed Eres' Bonita Wand +15...this meant that her critical hits went up from around 3150 to 3780. Kae went up by 41.99%, and, thanks to the use of a platinum blessed iris, Red went up by 110.04%, getting well into level 61. Over the three hours Kae's drake, SirFrancis, added another 2343 pet points, while Red's added 1514.

So, both characters had moved along nicely; RedRydeR had received her free 60/62 armour set and level 61 weapons, which as they are just +5 are not very thrilling and will probably end up with one of my storage characters. She'd been able to spend 300 skill points on level 6 of the Piercing attack skill, and then spend 889 sp on the first five levels of Fatal Attack, which increased her physical offence stat from 1126 to 1283. Red had actually died once during the evening, when Kae was attacked by two zombies at once and she attacked the one Kae wasn't actually fighting...and Snare failed at a vital moment. Still, once over her first six hours in the Tomb isn't bad - she came a bit close later when one of VanityFiend's zombies wandered back onto her after killing that rogue, but managed to survive that time.

Kaerella didn't have any new skill to learn, she will have to wait for level 74 before she can learn the sixth level of Charm - this level not only increases the magical attack buff from 50 to 60, it doubles its duration to ten minutes.

Some general moving around of items was needed, to prepare for tomorrow morning's session, when, assuming that the Tomb is still fairly easy (it had moved to around 90% of the way towards the easy end when I left), Kae and Red will resume, while Kae's armour still has its 24-hour augmentation. There seem to be just about enough platinum blessed irises in stock for both characters...and some more crit potions have been moved into Kae's inventory in readiness. Ideally, it would be good to get RedRydeR up to within ten levels of Kaerella, so that for perhaps one hour it would be possible to have a combat party, with Kae doing all the fighting and using some experience boosters as well as the pbi. But that may not be until the next time that Kaerella's armour gets a 24-hour upgrade, to a physical defence of 2516. Even that much defence didn't save her from occasionally taking up to 50% damage from a screaming zombie, though generally they didn't hurt her very much.

RedRackham logged back in for a little late-night pet-levelling, though the computers will both be having a rest overnight, along with the modem. I want them in prime working condition tomorrow morning...

Levelling Up - June 15th

With the clock running on Kaerella's armour augmentations, today started very differently from usual. The 24 hours during which her armour was boosted from +13 (+14 on the headgear) to +15, with the extra bonus that that brings, were due to run out just after lunch - so, after afternoon and evening sessions yesterday, a full-length morning session was called for to complete the set.

This meant that there was no pet-levelling this morning; straight after breakfast Kaerella logged in, and checked the Condition of the Tomb of Theos. To my relief it was back on maximum easy, with the two bars at their 100% length, so RedRydeR logged in too, and joined Kae...and back into the Tomb they went.

As one might expect, things were pretty quiet at 8:30 in the morning, UK time, which for America's East Coast is 3:30am, so with the equal party set up, Kaerella, on level 73, and RedRydeR, on level 61, set to work. before very long a level 84 titan called SixtyOn3 stopped on his way to deeper parts to ask "solo me guys?", so he got added to the party, and stayed in it for about ninety minutes, reaching level 85, well out of range of us. A knight called Svan gave us both Concentration as he passed - I'm sure we saw him yesterday too, though this time, since Red could no longer benefit from the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff as she's beyond its level range, we were on Cariae-4 rather than Cariae-5.

The first hour saw Kaerella go up by 44.41%, with RedRydeR gaining 109.90% and reaching level 62. Towards the end of the second hour the level 71 specialist sorcerer danjorge arrived, also moved over from Cariae-5. By then Red had reached level 63, while Kae was approaching the top of level 73, so I had taken the opportunity, when Kae was on 99%, to change the party type to Combat, meaning that I was able to invite danjorge to join us, which he did.

While both Kae and Red were using platinum blessed irises for triple experience, changing to the Combat type, where you are rewarded, experience-wise, for the amount of damage you do, as well as getting and giving a small bonus, meant that Kae seemed to get a bit more than Red...for the second hour, Kaerella added 39.63%, and RedRydeR added 88.52%. As well as Red reaching level 63, Kae had reached level 74 before the hour ended.

The reason for changing the party type was that, now that Red's pbi was over and Kae could start fresh pots, we could switch to RedRydeR just standing at the side, and Kaerella doing all the fighting, and using not just a pbi but individual experience boosters too. I was slightly slowed down by the occasional need to heal danjorge, which I generally only did between zombies... he died once, but generally he did okay, though he got through masses of health pots, minerals, and so on. During the third hour, while Red only got small amounts of experience, for 6.17%, Kaerella, using 67 skill points boosters, went up by 184.54%, getting her most of the way through level 75.

There was just time for a fourth hour, if I didn't mind a slightly late and hastily-prepared lunch. When he reached level 72 danjorge left, so I had the place almost to myself again, apart from a level 66 knight called KnightKobus, who generally fought just round the corner out of sight. That meant I could work at full speed - but unfortunately about a third of the way through both computers got disconnected, which meant that, while I was able to log back in, I couldn't form the Combat party again as now my two characters were more than ten levels apart. Kaerella hurried back to the Tomb to continue, but Red stayed in Randol, just giving her a solo party, which meant that instead of around 58 million experience per kill, it was standardised at 54,012,636.

So, in the fourth hour RedRyder just added 3.21% - her drake had gained 1359 pet points during the first two hours, before being put away. Kaerella added 178.15%, which wasn't bad, considering the break; she got through 79 experience boosters, so was definitely speedier when not having someone else around who needed healing. Across the four hours, her drake added 3444 pet points, so is getting fairly close to levelling up too.

RedRydeR was able to learn the seventh and last level of Mind Training, since that came available at level 63; it increases her magical resistance/evasion by another 5, for 275 skill points. After that, she logged out, and was quickly replaced as solo party provider by RedRackham, who went along to the gnoll lancers for some pet-levelling. Kaerella herself was able to spend 250 skill points on the sixth level of the buff Charm, increasing its boost to magical attack and doubling its duration. The third level of Party Heal 2 came available at level 76; for 380 skill points it increases the health boost for each party member from 350 to 400, using 200 mana.

During the two "equal party" hours, Kae, fighting alongside RedRydeR, had just used a crit potion along with the pbi, and had occasionally lost health; for her two combat "power hours" she had used berserker, power, and platinum adrenalin pots as well, and the extra 95 to defence from the power potion seemed to make all the difference, Kae was very nearly invulnerable...which was lucky when she was standing helpless during the disconnection. So, an expensive pair of hours, but productive. As usual the loot was rather minor; enough gold to more than cover the entrance fees, a couple of large defence potions, one large attack potion, five moonstone boxes, one heaven stone, a pan flute, and a pair of titan gloves which were sold afterwards to Geres for 320,194 gold.

The afternoon session was a bit short, particularly as some items needed to be traded around, interrupting RedRackham's pet-levelling...but SirKit's inventory got cleaned out a bit, with sirDarth taking his old armour sets, and MistressDomina taking the sellable loot. So, by the time things were sorted out SirKit probably had no more than an hour in Maargadum Jail.

Floor three's beast flyers were ready and waiting for SirKit's arrival, anyway, though towards the end another royal knight, GodOfVengeance, barged in. It was a pity to leave him with them all to himself, but the early evening food break was approaching. Back in the village, Kit got the reward for killing those beast crawlers yesterday, which added 4.36% and 4 skill points to his total for the afternoon - in all, he went up by 15.19%, 99 skill points, and 878 pet points.

But all these recent excitements mean that I have been spending very little time with the orcs in Prokion Temple, so for the evening session I moved across to Katar-5, where Kaerella is a level 33 archer still gathering skill points there. I was lucky, and the back room was free when I got to it, someone else having just vacated it. After a while a specialist sorcerer called DeadlyWolverine barged in and started fighting the orc axemen and orc sergeants too, but there were nearly enough for both of us, and he didn't stay too long. I had to take a break to do some mundane work, but the room was still free when I returned. A rogue called denstyle95 made a brief visit...and the sorcerer turned up again, but left when he saw I was still there.

The solo party was a strange one, with a lot of talk between two or three relatively high-level people about good and bad guilds, and how some would pk and ks and lure, even in the Commander room at the far end of the Tomb. I couldn't follow it all, not being familiar with guild names and abbreviations on Katar, but the politics all seemed very complex. Eventually I became party leader, and had to get rid of people who'd logged out long before, but not left the party, and re-register - when I finally left, the party was up to full active strength again.

Kaerella added 33.27% experience before the Elizabeth's Enhancement buff ended, plus a useful 568 skill points, and 272 guild points for the local branch of the Discipline guild. After that she used her tool aids to do some mining and "herbalism"...the quality stones would be generally for her own pale blue horse, but most of the green herb leaves will probably get transferred across to my merchant character at some point, along with the suitable loot.

RedRackham had been pet-levelling on Cariae-5; lately the older computer, if left alone, has tended to freeze up after a while, so the game there needs restarting occasionally. He got ks'd, for the second time today, and was standing there doing nothing for a while before I noticed, and restarted the game; another knight, xGauvainxx, was also ks'd there, and I think there may even have been an attempt to lure a nearby gnoll soldier onto him, which might have attacked his pony, but luckily didn't. After some completely trouble-free weeks pet-levelling on Cariae, it looks as if we may now get problems. Ah well, RedRackham's horse has reached level 36 now, and thus has started on its final level, so it may be almost time for us to move on.

We are promised "the World Cup event" after tonight's maintenance downtime, so presumably those soccer ball-dropping "inoffensive" monsters will turn up tomorrow, as well as the option to buy soccer costumes in the colours of just about every soccer team. All clever marketing - except that many people will only have melded a pirate costume onto their armour a couple of weeks ago, from the Wendy bear event, so won't be in the market for a new cover until the old one runs out, after 30 days. Still, it all should brighten the place up!